Wordless Wednesday ~ Mummies!

I am linking up today with Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice for her Wordless Wednesday.

Today we were working on our Mummies for our Red Ribbon Week door contest.  A big shout out to my friends Amber and LuAnn from Kindergarten Rocks for the idea and inspiration for this project.  Be sure to check back Friday for a look at the finished product.  Do you celebrate Red Ribbon week with any fun activities? I would love to hear about them.  Be sure to check out the linky for more fun.

~Laura

Five for Fraturday ~ Pumpkins Everywhere!

Well it is finally starting to feel like fall.  I just love this time of year.  Cool mornings and evenings, warm afternoons, leaves changing colors and of course, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice...lol.  This week I am joining in on one of my favorite linky's Doodle Bugs Five For Friday Fraturday. 

This week we dove into our unit on pumpkins. It is one of my favorites.There are just so many opportunities for fun learning. Here is what went down this week.

First up our focus wall for this week. We are making such great progress and I am super proud of my kiddos.  Here are our circle maps from the week. We really rocked the "Tt" chart.  The kiddos thought of more words than I could fit on our chart.

We are moving right along with our sight words as well.  75% of my kiddos have mastered our first list, the Baseball words and are so excited to move on to Soccer words.  They ask to practice their "ball words" whenever they finish early.  It makes my heart happy that they are so eager to learn.  I am working on a post all about how we learn sight words, so stay tuned.

Another win we had this week is, 12 of my 18 kiddos have made it to the Top Banana Club.

To make it into the club they have to identify all of the upper case and lower case letters and their sounds, as well as write the upper and lower case letters in order with out looking at the alphabet wall.  

This may not sound like much, but in our rural area there is no preschool.  So my kiddos have had no school experience when they come to me.  I will admit that 7 of my kiddos are back this year as they were my TK's last year, they were still 4 when they started school.  In addition, when they did come to me last year they didn't speak English so not only have they made huge progress on their skills, but they are making great strides in learning English as well.  

Do you have any fun achievement clubs in your room?? 

We started the week by reading several books about pumpkins.  These are just a few of the titles we read...

Our Poem this week is a fun little ditty about Pumpkins on the Gate, of course.  This is from Deanna Jump's  Pumpkin Palooza Unit.  We also created an Anchor chart about the outside characteristics of a pumpkin.

Next we completed a craftivity about the life cycle of a pumpkin.  I had major teacher fail...I was taking pics up a storm of them working on this project only to discover, after school when I went to look at the pictures, that there was NO memory card in my camera...all I could do was shake my head and laugh. So I snapped a few pics of the finished product.

They did a great job and they look super cute displayed on our window sills. If you like this activity you can find it from Robin Sellers here.

On Thursday we took a field trip to the pumpkin patch.  They had a fantastic time of learning and fun.  We had a hay ride, heard a story about the farm, played in the corn pit, (a class favorite), then took a walk in the "forest" and the corn maze. Finally we heard all about how pumpkins grow from farmer Billy Bob and then we chose our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.

When we got back we did a little writing all about our filed trip. This great little activity is a freebie from Elizabeth Hall at Kickin it in Kindergarten. 

We completed the top half of the paper together.  They would sound out the words and tell me what sounds they heard to write on the board.  Then for the "My favorite part..." they completed it all on their own.  For my low students I told them to just draw the picture and any sounds they could hear to tell me about their picture.  They all did a fantastic job.

Next week we will have part 2 all about pumpkins with a full day of experiments. The kiddos can't wait.

Yesterday was our 22nd Wedding Anniversary.  The hubby and I started going steady my senior year in high school on October 24th, six years later we got married on that same day.  Don't do the math...just don't...I am old I know. It seems weird to think that we have spent more years of our life together than not.

You can tell it was the early 90's by the hair and dress...lol.  It hasn't all been a bed of roses but being best friends has made it all worth it and I wouldn't change a thing.  In honor of our special day I am offering 20% off at my tpt store this weekend to celebrate.

What were you up to this week?  I would love to hear all about it. Enjoy your weekend!

~Laura

Wordless Wednesday! The Seasons

I am linking up once again withe the fabulous Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday.

We had a great time today Q-Tip painting our four season trees.  Do you do any fun projects when learning about the four seasons??  I would love to hear your ideas. Be sure to check out the linky to see what everyone else was up to today.

Laura

Markdown Monday

Today I am linking up with Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for Mark Down Monday.

I am offering my new Spiders Galore Math & Literacy Centers for 40% off until Friday October 24th. 

My kiddos had a blast using these activities last week. They always love write the room.  This center has 12 Spider Vocabulary cards for your students to locate around the room and write on their recording sheet.

Another one of their favorites is matching the spider and web rhyming cards.  This can be differentiated in 3 different ways.  Students can just match the cards.  There is also a recording sheet where students can draw pictures of their matches.  My high group did both of those activities as well as sound out the words and write them on the boxes with their pictures.

We were having such a great time with these centers I didn't get more pictures snapped.  The other ELA activities included are:  Upper/Lower case letter matching, Letter/Sound matching, Roll a SIght Word, and Unscramble the Spider Sentences.  The Math activities included are, Number/Tally Mark Matching, Non-Standard Spider Measuring, Fill-in 10 Frame Cards, Spider count the Room, 2-versions of Roll & Cover so you can differentiate.

These activities are all aligned to CCSS and have the standards listed.  They each also have a matching "I can..." direction card for the students.  If you purchase this fun unit I would really appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions feel free to give me a shout out.  Be sure to check out all the other great markdowns on the link up and have a fantastic week!

~Laura

Sunday Scoop

Today I am linking up with The Teaching Trio for Sunday Scoop.  A quick fun linky to just check in with what is happening.

3 Things I have to do…

I have seen a recurring theme between myself and so many other bloggers that Sunday is laundry today, and today is no exception.  I will admit that since my oldest left for college it has been less to do, but it is still not my favorite thing.

Friday was a major craftivity day in class.  We had races to get to…so the minute the kiddos were delivered to the bus I grabbed my bags, yes plural I may have a bag problem, and I hit the road.  That means there are glitter spider webs and word family spiders that were drying laying out on all of my tables.  Plus the craft supplies are all still out on my kidney table.  So I have to run over, well I will probably drive it is a little too far to run, and straighten things up.  I have all of my upcoming centers in my bins ready to go I just need to switch them out .  I usually don’t like to leave Friday unless I am ready to go for Monday, but sometimes it just can’t be helped.

I have been committed to eating healthier.  Well when I get home during the week I am so tired that if I am not prepared I will end up eating something that I really shouldn’t.  So I need to get my menu planned and printed for the week that way I can keep on track.

2 Things I hope to do…

I want to find at least 45 minutes to spend on the treadmill.  I always feel so much better after getting a little exercise.  Even if I am tired I know I will feel less tired if I get moving.  It doesn’t make sense I know.

In total contrast and contradiction to the walking,  I also hope to take a nap…lol.  It has been a long and busy weekend and I just feel like if I could squeeze in even a 30 minute power nap I could get through my above items so much easier.

 

The Thing I am Happy to do…

MY oldest is home for the weekend to visit…really he has an orthodontist appoint in the morning, but I can think he came home just to see me right.  Anywho, we are having family dinner night with EVERYONE.  That means aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa, great-grandma, cousins…you get the picture.  We are a pretty close family.  I am not the only one excited that Beau is home for a visit.  They all wanted to say hi and see how college was going.  So we will have a fun evening of food and fellowship.

What are you up to this Sunday?  I would love to hear.  Also don’t forget to enter on my blogpost  from Friday to win my new Spiders Galore centers.  I will be letting my son pick a winner tonight.  Have a great week friends!

~Laura

Five for Friday~Spiders Galore & So Much More!

I can’t believe it is Friday already.  The weeks are just flying by.  I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun.  I will admit I hate it when that alarm clock goes off at 5AM, but once I am up I am excited to see what the day will bring.  Kindergarten is a new adventure everyday.

 

Today I am linking up once again with the fabulous Kacey at Doodle bugs teaching for this weeks 5 for Friday.

Here is a peek at our focus wall for the week.  We are making our way through the alphabet, this week was R and S. 

Yes, we skipped Q.  I go back to that and teach Qu.  They are married ya know and so they are always together…always.  We make it a super fun week. Anywho…here are our letter circle maps for the week.

Mr. Greg, from The KindergartenSmorgasbord had a great idea to make a book using pictures of your circle maps once you have gone through the entire alphabet.  Lucky for me I have been taking pics each week.  I think it will be a favorite in our library.

Another one of the things we have been focusing on is our reading stamina.  Once we hit the 5 minute mark I gave each little their own whisper phone to use. 

They were so excited.  If you want to make your own like I did check out my tutorial here.  They were super easy.  They really help my kiddos hear how they are pronouncing their words, it is especially helpful for my ELL’s.  But…we are stuck at the 10 minute mark.  Any suggestions??  I stopped even counting my 2 little’s that are on IEP’s otherwise we would still be stuck at about 7 min.  I just stay close to them and redirect quickly when they start to get off task so the other students won’t see it.  About ¾ of my other students I know could go much longer, but I have some real young ones that just can’t get past 10…ugh!  Help!

Another highlight of our week was a visit from our reading buddies.  Every other week our 5^th grade reading buddies come for a visit. 

It is so beneficial for both groups.  It builds confidence and leadership in the upper graders and allows my littles to feel special that the “big” kids come to read just to them.  Many of my higher kiddos can now read a book back to their buddy and you should see their smiles!  They are so proud of themselves.  Next visit we are planning an art project together, it should be lots of fun.

Do you do sharing in your class??  We do and it is a fantastic way to build listening and speaking skills.  Each child has an assigned day that they can bring something to share.  I have some black tote bags they take out to their backpack to put their item in and bring in, so it is a secret from the other students.  They choose 3 clues at home about their item.  Then I help them read each of their clues.  We give a clue, they choose 3 students to guess, then the next clue and guesses, etc.  Once they reveal their item I usually ask a few other questions of them. 

The kiddos love it and it usually only takes about 5-7 minutes of our day, but it is so worth it.  They are becoming so much more comfortable talking in front of the class.  To be honest they don’t always remember to bring something on “their day” so sometimes it goes even quicker.  I got this fantastic idea of using the 3 clues from the wonderful Kim Adsit, in her Ultimate Open HousePack.

One of the things that makes my job so rewarding are the wonderful notes and pictures of love that I receive from my kiddos.  How do you keep yours??  This year I created a little bulletin board area on one of my cabinets to display them.  

The kiddos love seeing their artwork displayed and it is always a great thing to look at if I am having a "tuff" day...lol.

Our main focus this week was all about Spiders.  I don't do Halloween because I have kiddos who don't celebrate, but we study spiders, pumpkins, and bats during October. 

We had a blast learning with some fun thrown in there too. We started off by putting our schema on our spider interactive chart. Then we read several books and watched several videos all about spiders.  Next we added our new learning to our interactive chart.

Then we made these fantastic All About Spider books from Deanna Jump's unit.  We unscrambled the sentences, glued them in our book and then drew a matching illustration.  They did a fantastic job!

We are working on our first word family -at.  So we completed this super cute craftivity with all of the -at words that we came up with. 

These are a FREEBIE from Susan Jones at Thank God it's First Grade.  They came out super cute!

We had to do some spider writing. This was perfect to help support those kiddos they are still needing a prompt.  While my above level kiddos could add additional sentences on their own. 

These were the great idea of Miss Kindergarten Love.  You can get her FREEBIE mini unit here.

We also had a great time with our Math and Literacy centers from my new pack Spiders Galore .  One of their favorite things to do is write the room.  So we're reviewing all of our important spider vocabulary as we wrote our words from around the room.

We did some rhyming practice by matching the spider card with it's rhyming web card.  My high students then drew pictures and sounded out the words to the matches that they found.

We also did number and tally mark matching, a counting spiders around the room activity, measuring spiders, unscrambling spider sentences and so much more. Unfortunately I had to do assessments during center time so I wasn't unable to take more great pics of our center fun.  But here are some previews of this unit so you can check them out.  

We ended our week with one final craft.  We had learned all about spider webs so we made some of our own.  They couldn't have been easier.  Draw your web with a pencil on your black paper.  Trace your drawing with glue.  Add glitter, yes glitter and dump of the excess.  Ta Da!  Beautiful spider webs where everyone was able to be creative and feel successful.

As a reward for making it through this marathon post leave me a comment with your email and I will giveaway one of my new Spiders Galore Math & Literacy Centers. We have a big weekend of racing so I will pick a winner when I get home Sunday night!  

So what were you up to this week?  I would love to hear all about it!  Be sure to check out the linky and see what everyone else has been up to this week.

~Laura